Toast #BringBackTheBars - Our Heritage, Our History, Our Right! Part 1

[Prison bar Pete]

I can recall seeing a pic of Neville Roberts wearing a Richmond version of the PB's for a publicity shot in one of the Melbourne papers in 1974 or 75, and it actually looked quite good.

Now that I gotta see!

 

[El_Scorcho]

Dear Members,

It’s not important…unless you make it important.
It’s a little life lesson, which rings louder today than it ever has.

As people all over the world tackle the dual impact of a health crisis and the resultant financial hardship incurred trying to stay safe, it has forced many of us to re-evaluate what is really important in our lives.

Not surprisingly… family, community and a sense of belonging have rarely felt so essential.

As the Prison Bar debate rose up again this week, it reaffirmed once more that unless you are part of the Port Adelaide family and really understand what this iconic guernsey means to this football Club and its people…It’s easy to dismiss its significance.

To hear media commentators bemoaning the fact that the issue was being discussed again, and the odd opportunistic supporters of other clubs trying to roll out the old argument that somehow the Port Adelaide Football Club playing in the AFL today, isn’t the same Club that was born in 1870 was as laughable as it was understandable. They just don’t get it.

Which is precisely why the fight must go on.
It’s not important unless we make it important.

The reality is that our history matters.
For 150 years, the Port Adelaide Football Club has been a beacon for the game of Australian Football.
It has toiled, often in the face of great hardship, to be the best football Club it could be.
It has produced champions and champion teams at a rate unparalleled in sport in this country, as we’ve seen just this week with two more Port Adelaide players recognised in the Australian Football Hall of Fame. Hearty congratulations to Greg Phillips and his family and to the family of the late, great John Abley. We felt your pride as we recounted those champions deeds in that iconic black-and-white guernsey.

Most importantly, the Port Adelaide Football Club, through heroes such as Abley and Phillips, has provided hope, identity, purpose and joy for its people…the legion of supporters who have been both inspired and energised by the deeds of their Club, but equally have been there to fight for it and lift it through periods of despair and risk.

Since 1902, the Prison Bar guernsey has been the embodiment of our Club’s values.
It is more than a uniform.
It’s one of our games great treasures, as Nathan Buckley, David Parkin, Kevin Sheedy, Dennis Cometti and many other informed and educated students of Australian Football have graciously acknowledged.

When we chose to elevate the Club onto the national stage in 1997, we understood that it would mean that we could not wear the Prison Bars on a week to week basis in the AFL, or carry the Magpie emblem on our AFL guernsey.
We’re not asking for that.

We are simply asking to wear the Prison Bar guernsey twice a year in Showdowns as a permanent nod to its significance to our Club, our community and more broadly the contribution it has made to the heritage of Australian football. This rivalry embodies everything great about football in this state, and to wear our traditional prison bar strip in these games just adds to that.

We believe it is an important matter, and we look forward to discussing the proposition further with the AFL in the coming weeks.

Can’t wait for the Showdown!!

KT

Now we're f**ken talking.

 

[Alex09]

With how rude, arrogant and disrespectful to Port Eddie was in his tv tantrum the other night he has lost. There is no way Port people will let this go now, war is declared. Those that were ambivalent are now galvanised. Even many crows fans in SA are siding with the Power. By acting like a self entitled twit Eddie has cooked his own goose on this one.

 

[edgie]

Now we’ve got Kevin Sheedy going in to bat for us.

Did Kevin Sheedy just invent clash guernseys?

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[edgie]

Whilst the media never pushed it from a POV to benefit us, only the crows, I think in public there would still be enough kick a Vic's out there that will side with us here, and we need them.

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[Art Vandelay_]

We have a blue and white hooped jumper and Geelong pretty much said "We don't care, do what you want".

Because we’re not petty like Eddie, and we know full well what a 1 club v the AFL/powerful melb clubs feels like.

You want your heritage. We want our home ground.

People say there is vic bias. It’s more Big 4 bias. If you’re a powerful well supported MCG tenant life really couldn’t be made easier for you.

 

[Spadge]

I loved Eddies rant on footy classified

He came off as a scared petulant little child.. what what was with that snoring "boring" stuff.. LOL
He did far more harm to his cause and would have totally pushed everyone TOWARDS our cause

The wheel is turning!!

The short game has commenced.. Prison Bars for all showdowns
The long game will come.. Prison Bars for all games

You have to win the battles before you can win a war...

 

[PA88]

If you want to take things literally, at this moment we are NOT asking to wear it every week, or every home game, or against Colingwood... etc etc.

Doesn't mean we won't ask for those things in the future.

It's decent then you can't ignore a continual push by the supporters for more, without grounds.

I think Kochie is trying for a small victory here and I will back him in his efforts. If we gained AFL approval to wear the PB jumper in Showdowns it would be a small but important long term gain. The reality is we are never going to get AFL permission to wear the guernsey outside of Adelaide.

It has been 6 years since we last wore the prison bars. These things move extremely slowly. I'd be ecstatic if we're able to wear it for all Showdowns, the ANZAC Day game, any form of Heritage round if they ever bring that back, and all Finals excluding Collingwood by the end of this decade.

Don't get me wrong, I hope it moves faster too. But given the pace it has gone at to date, along with the simple fact that Eddie won't be going away any time soon, this is going to drag out for quite a while yet.

Yep!

Remember how quickly our current guernsey went from obscure one off to full time home guernsey.

Once they're in the public eye a couple of times a year, and Collingwood carry on without even noticing, they become much more widely popular and accepted amongst both supporters and the wider AFL community, and the movement to have them full time grows and the resistence to having them full time lessens.

Cheers. I'm grateful for all these reassurances and explanations. I need it.
On this matter I am far too impatient but I can't apologise for it.
In a blink of an eye if I had the power of authority I would have us in the bars permanently and lock away all other jumpers for 50 years to cleanse the identity issue among our own community.

Oh and we should never think that we cannot wear it outside of SA. We have already and we could easily do it against Freo, WC, and GC all away ... but oh alright lets begin with every year twice a year in showdowns ...

 

[PowerBaz]

Cheers. I'm grateful for all these reassurances and explanations. I need it.
On this matter I am far too impatient but I can't apologise for it.
In a blink of an eye if I had the power of authority I would have us in the bars permanently and lock away all other jumpers for 50 years to cleanse the identity issue among our own community.

Oh and we should never think that we cannot wear it outside of SA. We have already and we could easily do it against Freo, WC, and GC all away ... but oh alright lets begin with every year twice a year in showdowns ...

I wonder if other clubs, say some you mentioned got together to help our cause, acknowledge the problem and suggest we wear it against them in interstate games to help fight the bias from AFL house towards Eddie and Collingwood.

 

[Chewy316]

I wonder if other clubs, say some you mentioned got together to help our cause, acknowledge the problem and suggest we wear it against them in interstate games to help fight the bias from AFL house towards Eddie and Collingwood.

I think such unity is already beginning with the release of videos from Cometti and Sheedy praising the bars on ports media platform. Dare I say they won't be the last either.

 

[PA88]

Over the years I had tired of Bruce McAvaney's over indulging commentary but his spill about the PB is bloody fantastic too.

 

[S.Patrol.G]

I think such unity is already beginning with the release of videos from Cometti and Sheedy praising the bars on ports media platform. Dare I say they won't be the last either.

Daniel Norton said as much on Twitter. There are more coming. If this is a planned push, as it appears to be, some people at the club, and associated with the club, deserve a fair bit of credit.

Koch is saying, mostly, the right things in public, for once, but my information is that other individuals have been the main drivers and architects of this elevation of noise. Two, in particular, on the Board and a couple at executive level (not KT).

 

[Lockhart Road]

Daniel Norton said as much on Twitter. There are more coming. If this is a planned push, as it appears to be, some people at the club, and associated with the club, deserve a fair bit of credit.

Koch is saying, mostly, the right things in public, for once, but my information is that other individuals have been the main drivers and architects of this elevation of noise. Two, in particular, on the Board and a couple at executive level (not KT).

BigFooty have made a significant contribution.

There is something stirring, something building, something designed to bring us all together and to maximise the drive, passion and unique character that is Port Adelaide, something that has got lost somewhere along the way ... until now.

If Ken Hinkley can carry on as he has started in 2020, this will be quite a year ... despite all the obstacles, and yet because of the challenges such as we’ve never seen before, there to test us.

 

[PowerBaz]

Good reading on the main board re this issue, quite surprised that many Collingwood supporters don’t care about us earring the bars, just not against them, ‘fine by me’

 

[Andre]

Good reading on the main board re this issue, quite surprised that many Collingwood supporters don’t care about us earring the bars, just not against them, ‘fine by me’

Yeah, most realise their club is one of the biggest in the country (if not the biggest) and we aren't ever going to be a threat to them. If you did a poll of all clubs members we all know which club would top the No vote and it wouldn't be Collingwood.

 

[Alex09]

The Collingwood people that I know in real life have no issue with the prison bars. It's all in his mind (Eddie), he has issues.

 

[TheFVK]

Indeed I would go as far to say every Collingwood supporter I have met has both been a pretty decent footy supporter AND doesn't give a s**t about this.

This is Port v Eddie and his Ego make no mistake

 

[edgie]

These Collingwood people should send an email to their club.

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[RossFC]

Can someone get Bucks to have a convo with Eddie and tell him the earth will keep spinning?

 

[TheFVK]

Eddie's an ego driven entitled bully. He wouldn't change his mind out of principle.

 

[S.Patrol.G]

Indeed I would go as far to say every Collingwood supporter I have met has both been a pretty decent footy supporter AND doesn't give a s**t about this.

This is Port v Eddie and his Ego make no mistake

I'd add, any decent footy supporter, including Crows supporters that aren't stuck with the "not the real Port Adelaide" mental injury, are pro-bars, or don't care either way.

Eddie is just a moron and it's high-time the AFL acknowledge it, then ignore, or even better, call-out his grandstanding, bully-boy bluff and bluster.

 

[PowerBaz]

Indeed I would go as far to say every Collingwood supporter I have met has both been a pretty decent footy supporter AND doesn't give a s**t about this.

This is Port v Eddie and his Ego make no mistake

Really it’s an Eddie problem,
I think most people have moved on, would love the AFL to come out and support in but we all know that won’t happen will it, Gill go against Eddie?

 

[PowerBaz]

Seeing as the AFL is silent on the issue let’s just say we have the support of every other club (actually go get written support) and say here ya go Gill, seeing as your obviously not fussed, we’ll be wearing this from now on, happy to wear an alternate clash Guernsey against Ed’s mob when we are playing them away, perhaps they can sort something out when they visit Adelaide.

 

[Contested Marx]

Gill's silence on this matter - given the covid-related stutter start to the season - understandable, but it can't continue for too long.

But he tends to kowtow to Eddie's wishes anyway so maybe it's best he keeps quiet

Is it Auld who's in charge of the relevant department anyway?

 

[Contested Marx]

Another article, Collingwood supporter going against Eddie's ideology:

The problem with Collingwood’s jumper debate

Ah, the old jumper debacle. It’s back in the news. Collingwood president Eddie McGuire insists that Port Adelaide has no right to wear their…

www.theroar.com.au